Desolate Era

by RWX

  “The third level is the level known as ‘draconify’. When you use this footwork technique, an illusion of a lightning dragon shall protect your body, allowing your speed to increase dramatically. At this level, you shall have begin to grasp the true essence of this technique.

  “The fourth level is the level known as ‘thunderdragon’. This footwork technique can be used to control a type of lightning which is on the same level as other types of Dao lightning. Once you reach the fourth level, the lightning you control can become one with your body. You shall be the lightning and the lightning shall be you. You’ll be able to move as fast as Dao lightning. Even I myself have only ever reached this fourth level.

  “The fifth level is the level known as the ‘Eternal Thunderdragon’. After I created this technique, the almighty Hegemon looked it over and added a few improvements to two parts of it, then informed me that once this technique reached the apex one would be able to manifest a streak of Eternal lightning, then become one with it. I have spent dozens of chaos cycles painstakingly meditating on this technique as a Verge-level Daolord, but I’m still unable to make any improvements. I can’t even imagine what sort of level this ‘apex’ which the almighty Hegemon spoke of is at, but I’ve taken the liberty of describing it as the fifth level.”

  Ning couldn’t help but sigh in amazement as he read this. This footwork technique was far too powerful.

  The rest of the jade tome just included a few diagrams. There were a total of eighteen images of thunder dragons. As for the detailed information regarding the footwork technique as well as the divine power cycling method, all of that had been directly transmitted into Ning’s mind.

  “The divine power cycling method is useless to me, but this footwork technique itself is incredibly powerful once one reaches the apex of it.” Ning knew exactly what the phrase Eternal lightning entailed.

  Chaos lightning belonged to the World level of power, which was why it could easily breach the limits of the Heavenly Daos. Chaos lightning flew incredibly fast, roughly ten times faster than the speed of light. Generally speaking, even most Daolords were unable to move that fast.

  Dao lightning belonged to the Samsara level of power. Some Dao lightning was born from the endless primordial chaos, but some had been created by Daolords! In the Three Realms, Zhurong had created his own Zhurong Godfire while Suiren had created his Eternal Kindlefire. Samsara Daolords were similarly capable of creating their own incredibly powerful types of Dao lightning. Dao lightning flew incredibly fast, far faster than Chaos lightning. Generally speaking, they were able to move a hundred times faster than the speed of light.

  As for Eternal lightning… this level of lightning was something out of the legends. Ning had never heard of any type of Eternal lightning emerging naturally from the primordial chaos. Perhaps it existed, perhaps it did not. Only Eternal Emperors could hope to create Eternal lightning, and that only if they had reached incredibly profound levels of insight into the Dao of Lightning.

  As for how fast Eternal lightning moved? Ning had no idea as he had never seen it before.

  “When one reaches the apex of this footwork technique, one will be able to manifest a type of Eternal lightning, then merge with it?” Ning was speechless. How fast would such a person become?!

  “Still, even the creator of this footwork technique was only able to reach the fourth level. This, despite the fact that he was so talented that he was able to develop it after merely seeing the Hegemon’s own Eternal lightning. Most likely, the only reason why this footwork has a so-called ‘fifth level’ is because of the two alterations which the almighty Hegemon made to it.” Ning instantly realized that the fifth level was most likely something illusory and untouchable, like the reflection of the moon in the waters of a lake. If even a Verge-level Daolord spent dozens of chaos cycles without being able to master it, who could?!

  “My ambitions aren’t that high. I’ll be happy just reaching the third level.” Ning was still feeling quite excited.

  At the third level, he would gain the protection of an illusory thunder dragon that would allow him to move with incredible speed.

  Life for Ning in the Astral Islands was quite blissful. He had memorized two valuable sword-art legacies that he could train in, which included very detailed instructions on their use. He had also memorized an incredibly powerful footwork technique, one that was far superior to any other technique which Ning had ever seen. This, too, was available for Ning to train in as he pleased.

  As for experts on his same general level? There were dozens of freakishly talented geniuses for him to duel against.

  Time passed on, one day after another. The battles between the fifth stratum cultivators became rarer and rarer, as by now everyone had already fought everyone else. Some of them had battled each person multiple times by now. Even Kilostar and Waterwalker had dueled each other. But of course, the end result was that Waterwalker had been defeated. Kilostar maintained his undefeated streak within the fifth stratum.

  Time flowed on, and in the blink of an eye Ning had spent a thousand years here at the Astral Islands.

  The sixth stratum still had just a single astral island hovering within it. This was the residence of Bertulu, and he had issued no challenges. No one was qualified to truly challenge him.

  Within this astral island there was a white-haired youth dressed in loose white robes who was seated in the lotus position on the ground. Suddenly, his eyes opened up. He had a gentle, warm gaze, but they seemed to hold the light of countless stars within them. He murmured softly to himself, “A thousand years have gone past. The new cultivators have experienced a thousand years of tempering and growth. I imagine they should have reached a bottleneck in power by now. It is time for me to challenge them a bit. Mm… I shall start with Kilostar.”

  Soon, something happened that stunned all of the cultivators of the hundreds of thousands of astral islands.

  Kilostar, who had never fallen from the fifth stratum after entering it, had actually fallen down to the fourth stratum. All of his legacy treasures had been seized by the sixth stratum.

  Everyone knew that the sixth stratum cultivator, Bertulu, had just struck out and defeated Kilostar!

  * * *

  Book 26, Chapter 42 - Predeparture Preparations

  “Hurry up! Bring out all your best wine.” Kilostar and Bertulu were seated facing to each other on an oceanic island, a stone table in front of them.

  On one side was the skinny and swarthy Kilostar, dressed in that silver cape of his. On the other side was a white-robed, white-haired youth. The two had completely different looks and auras as well. Kilostar’s aura was rather valiant and explosive, whereas Bertulu’s aura was much warmer and more radiant. He was like the warmth of the sun, bringing comfort and friendliness to all who saw him.

  “That’s more like it.” Kilostar grabbed the gourd of wine that had appeared on the stone table, lifted it up high, then began to guzzle it all down.

  “Alright, alright. There’s no need for you to be this angry, Kilostar.” Bertulu let out a laugh.

  “You insidious, sly, hypocritical wolf in cultivator’s clothing!” Kilostar glared ferociously at Bertulu. Even his third eye within his forehead was bulging with rage. “I have NEVER fallen down from the fifth stratum. It was all because of you! You deceitful bastard, I lost because of your tricks! That was bullshit! Bullshit! BULLSHIT!”

  Bertulu chortled. “You lost, alright? Even if I did pull a few tricks, the end result was that you lost. In battle, the only thing that matters is the result. The process isn’t really important.”

  “I trusted you! That’s the only reason you were able to trick me!” Kilostar was furious.

  Actually, this wasn’t his first time being defeated by Bertulu. In the past, he had won ten battles in a row and was qualified to charge Bertulu for residence within the sixth stratum. However, Bertulu had swiftly dispatched him and sent him right back down to the fifth stratum. Over the course of many years, th
e twelve in the fifth stratum had tried numerous times to make it into the sixth stratum, but each time they were quickly knocked down by Bertulu once more. The only person who could stably reside within the sixth stratum was Bertulu himself.

  “If I had used my formation and focused completely on defense, there’s no way you could’ve beaten me,” Kilostar said angrily.

  He was pissed off just thinking about it. He had never been knocked out of the fifth stratum before. He had wanted to keep his perfect record, leaving behind the legend of Kilostar once he departed from these Astral Islands. To be honest, Kilostar had been planning on leaving for some time now… but who would’ve thought that his golden record would be broken just before his departure? Now, he was back in the fourth stratum. Of course he was irritated by this!

  “I trusted you! I considered you my friend! But you-” Kilostar truly was quite disgruntled.

  “Enough, enough already. It was my bad, alright? But you know, everything is fair game in a battle.” Bertulu chortled again. “Oh, right. How strong are the newbies?”

  “The newbies have improved significantly. Six of them made it to the fifth stratum,” Kilostar said.

  That very first year after Ning’s arrival, four members of his ‘class’ had made it into the fifth stratum. After a thousand years, two more had joined them.

  “As far as how strong they are…” Kilostar paused, weighing his words. “In terms of attack power, the Empress and Darknorth are on par with me. The others including Gorho, Daoist Fish, Fairy Brightheart, and Waterwalker are slightly weaker.”

  “Oh?” Bertulu was quite intrigued.

  “In terms of defensive prowess, Waterwalker is the strongest freak of all. He probably has some sort of special innate ability that makes him virtually unkillable. Next would be Fairy Brightheart, with Darknorth being third. The Empress, Gorho, and Daoist Fish are ranked below them.”

  Kilostar continued, “As for endurance, Darknorth is the strongest. After him is Fairy Brightheart, Waterwalker, the Empress, then the rest.”

  Kilostar nodded. “That would be how I would rank them. They each have their own specialties.” Kilostar smiled. “As for the more detailed information… go try them out yourself.”

  Bertulu was intrigued. “From what you are saying, it sounds as though this Darknorth fellow is quite strong?”

  “Him? He’s just as much of a bastard as you are.” Kilostar said in a disgruntled manner, “At first, his sword-arts were fairly weak and I was able to crush him with just one warblade. Over the course of the past thousand years, his footwork techniques and his sword-arts both improved dramatically. But the disgusting thing is, he not only has an Elementum Waterflame Gourd, he also has six damn Eternal weapons that are absolutely identical to each other.”

  Kilostar shook his head. “You tell me, doesn’t that just piss you off? Although I, Kilostar, have acquired multiple Eternal weapons as well, the only ones that suit me are those two warblades. He actually has SIX of those Eternal swords, and they are absolutely identical!” Kilostar said furiously, “It’s like a six on two fight! And that Elementum Waterflame Gourd continuously releases lightning against me as well…”

  Bertulu was surprised. “It sounds as though this Darknorth has quite a few treasures.”

  “He has a ridiculous amount of treasures! It’s damn near impossible to get six identical Eternal weapons, and that Elementum Waterflame Gourd has to be worth at least half a million cubes of chaos nectar as well. All combined, that stuff has to be worth more than a million cubes!” Kilostar grumbled unhappily, “If all he had was two swords and if he didn’t have that lightning helping him, I’d still be able to crush him.”

  “Oh…” Bertulu nodded upon hearing this.

  “Have an idea of what you are going to do?” Kilostar looked at him.

  “A few ideas.” Bertulu nodded. “I wanted to first challenge all of the old timers, then sweep through the six newbies. After that, I’ll be leaving.”

  “You are going to be leaving the Astral Islands?” Kilostar was briefly stunned, but he then nodded slightly.

  “It is time. The reason why I’ve been staying for the past few years was because I wanted to wait for this newest batch of ‘recruits’ to have a chance to grow up,” Bertulu explained. “The almighty Hegemon generally only goes out to personally abduct people roughly once every chaos cycle. I certainly can’t afford to wait that long for the next crop.”

  “You bastard, you can break through to become a Daolord whenever you want.” Kilostar shook his head and sighed. “I, unfortunately, have only gained a vague glimpse of what my path is to be. I haven’t truly understand it yet.”

  Only by truly discovering one’s own path and discovering one’s own Dao would one be able to rely on that Dao to become a Samsara Daolord.

  Bertulu had discovered his path and his Dao long ago. He was able to become a Samsara Daolord whenever he wished it. However, Brightshore Kingdom was a very safe place and he was simply in no rush to make his breakthrough. Once he made that choice, there would be no going back. He naturally wanted to make sure everything was perfect first.

  “You will benefit greatly from your time in the Twelve Palaces,” Bertulu said. “Although the Astral Islands have ninety-nine legacies, only the top ten legacies can be considered decent. Strictly speaking, none of these legacies can be considered ‘core’ legacies of the Twelve Palaces.”

  “Mm.” Kilostar understood this point as well.

  Kilostar lost his battle. His astral island sank from the fifth stratum to the fourth stratum.

  After that, Bertulu began an absolute ‘massacre’. He challenged one fifth stratum expert after another, but none of the challenged experts were afraid of him. Bertulu was a person who they normally wouldn’t have a chance to fight. All of them were filled with a towering desire to do battle as they went forth to face Bertulu.

  And the end result was…

  Every single astral island was smacked down to the fourth stratum.

  Originally, the fifth stratum had sixteen islands. It shrank down to fifteen… fourteen… thirteen… twelve…

  More and more islands began to fall.

  “Yet another island has fallen.” Ning stood at the edges of his own astral island, staring off into the distance as another astral island that had been within his stratum began to sink downwards.

  “Mm. My sword-arts have reached a bottleneck, as have my footwork techniques. It’ll be difficult for me to improve any further here in the Astral Islands. Although there are many freaks here for me to fight against, it is still time to leave soon,” Ning mused.

  It was time to leave the Astral Islands. Yes, the environment here was nice, and it was possible that over the course of countless years sparring against these monsters he might gain some insights that would allow him to master the seventh stance of the [Nameless] sword-art, but…

  That would almost assuredly be something that happened a very, very long time from now. It had taken him nearly five hundred years to master the sixth stance, and if you factored in the temporal acceleration it had actually taken tens of thousands of years. As for the seventh stance, Ning was completely mystified by it. He knew that mastering it would be an incredibly difficult prospect, and it would most likely take him perhaps a thousand times more time and effort.

  “I’m under the effects of a lifeblood oath to reach Vastheaven Palace within a chaos cycle. Only then will I be able to return to the Three Realms to bring back my parents. Although a chaos cycle is an extremely long period of time, who knows what new variables might be introduced in the future? I can’t waste too much time here.”

  Ning nodded to himself. To have spent a thousand years here in the Astral Islands was enough.

  “I should give this footwork legacy to World God Pillsaint.” Ning picked up his golden book, then sent World God Pillsaint a challenge. He was going to leave and he wouldn’t be able to take this jade tome with him. He might as well give it to Pillsaint instead.
The first person Ning had met here in the Astral Islands had been Pillsaint, and he had quite a good impression of the man.

  ……

  “A challenge?” The rosy-lipped, white-teethed, chubby-faced youth, World God Pillsaint, looked at his book. His eyes lit up. “It is Darknorth.”

  Ning and Pillsaint were on very good terms with each other.

  For example, when Ning didn’t wish to battle against a particular foe, but that person insisted on challenging him, Ning would often send World God Pillsaint a challenge and use that duel to avoid the first one.

  “Is Darknorth trying to avoid another challenge?” Pillsaint was puzzled. Still, he entered the room filled with divine runes and allowed himself to be teleported directly to the battlegrounds.

  This was an icy cold oceanic island that was completely locked in by icebergs. A cold wind howled through this world.

  As soon as Pillsaint appeared, he immediately saw the white-robed youth who was carrying that sword on his back.

  “Darknorth,” Pillsaint immediately called out to him.

  “Pillsaint.” Ning looked at him. “I’m going to be leaving.”

  “Leaving?” Pillsaint was stunned. “So soon?”

  “Yes.” Ning nodded.

  “That’s crazy fast. We cultivators live extremely long lives. Why rush things like this? Generally speaking, most of those other freakishly talented geniuses will spend ten million years or a hundred million years here before leaving,” Pillsaint said.

  Ning laughed. If he stayed here for ten million years, he probably would indeed be able to master the seventh stance of the [Nameless] sword-art. Ten million years out of an entire chaos cycle? That really was nothing. Still, Ning wanted to save as much time as he could, for fear of something else from happening.